This thread really kicked off in the last few days!
you glossed over every point I made and thus proved your here not to discuss, but simply throw your own ridicules around.
With the benefit of hindsight, it should now be obvious to you that I've done nothing of the sort. I haven't made a single comment about religious claims; the discussion started out in reference to a History Channel program and I merely pointed out that there is no contemporary evidence indicating Jesus ever existed. This is fact, not ridicule. I haven't said anything about religion or Christianity or anything of the sort.
I glossed over some of your points because they weren't relevant to the question of primary sources.
seems your just trolling not for debate, but just to insult. seems your motive is clear and even the most logicaly made assertions would be glossed over in attempts to insult "cults" and believers in "Robin Hood".
The cult reference was in regard to another poster's mention of Josephus and the early days of Christianity, when it
was a cult. The Robin Hood reference illustrates the folly of pushing ahead without historical evidence.
If Jesus didn't exist, then a lot of cultures OUTSIDE OF CHRISTIANITY including the Romans have some explaining to do why they validate his existence despite heavily opposing the religious conotation that Christians placed on him.
Not really. Lots of people believe things that aren't true. It's only within the last 150 years or so that history has come into its own as a sort of forensic science - early histories (hello Plato) were riddled with fallacies, assumptions and mythologies. Nowadays we look at evidence, and for Jesus there is none. This isn't a religious point - it's a historical one. We don't take things for granted anymore (hello again, Plato).
Seems the logical decision of these counter-Christian cultures would have been to cut it off at the source and dispell His very existence, but its clear through historical writings (once journalism and record keeping became more common place in the 1st and 2nd century AD) that they didn't squash this and instead nonbelievers actually validate it.
It is silly in the extreme to pretend that something written 200 years after the event qualifies as "journalism and record keeping" without primary sources to back it up - you'd be thrown out of journalism class for starters! And of course these "counter-Christian cultures" have no more reason to argue Jesus wasn't real than Christians have to argue Mohammad or the Buddha weren't real (and no intelligent Christian does that). We don't have to pretend Joseph Smith wasn't real to discount Mormonism, for example.
So it really gets back to a very basic question - are there any primary sources? And the answer is no. Now of course you are free to argue whether this means anything.
Basically your logic is that if you weren't specifically accounted for in a Roman document (with an exact date stamp
), and the document must survive over a millenia, that you must never have existed.
You might try reading what people write rather than arguing with yourself. I never said Jesus didn't exist. I pointed out there are no primary sources indicating he existed, which gives him the same credence from a historical perspective as Robin Hood. It's also worth noting the Roman Empire is one of the best-documented civilizations in history, with endless bureaucratic documentation in existence. It does stretch belief that a person who becomes so well known that Pilate takes an interest - and who is criminally executed - goes unmentioned in any contemporary record.
I really find it ridiculous for someone to make a claim that based soley on lack of contemporary historical evidence, Jesus did not exist.
You can't disprove a negative. All anyone can say is that there is no mention of Jesus in any contemporary records. But as you say, "history is the lie agreed upon." Surely Nicea taught us that.
